A Music Blog by Peter Clough and Chelsea Clough.

April 24, 2009

The Rolling Stones "Exile on Main Street" was released on May 12th 1972 as a double album. Containing the Top 40 hits, "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy" the album went Gold within weeks, but then took 28 years to go Platinum. It is always cited near the top in any list of the Greatest Albums of all Time.

An undisputed Classic. But often discussions of this album include which song or songs one HATES and from time to time it is suggested that this would have been an astonishing single LP had they pared it down a bit.

Of course, this kind of misses the point - "Exile on Main Street" as it stands was a grand sprawling messy diary of the Stones stretching out and endulging in the excesses afforded them. I get that. But let's do this anyway.

The entire Double LP clocks in at about 65 minutes. A typical LP in that era was around 40 minutes, so this was more of an album and a half anyway - Lets cut 6 and Pick 12 and I'll post the results soon.

Comments Welcomed!

Exile on a Single LP

Page One

1. What Tracks from Exile on Main Street are on YOUR Single LP Version? Pick 12.

April 2, 2009

Bob Lefsetz of the famous Lefsetz Letter wrote so well about this recording that I won't even try to paraphrase. You can read the whole thing yourself right here The short version is that on their tour last summer, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss did several songs from the Led Zeppelin catalog including Black Dog, Black Country Woman and the epic Battle of Evermore. This version of "Battle" was recorded during the tour's stop at the Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia Maryland. It's a really high quality soundboard recording.Enjoy! Then go buy a ticket next time they come around. I know I won't miss it twice.